Sinclair

I didn't depart for the human refugee settlement alone. I took every Alpha I could find, but I took special care to include Kieran. The wolf had been shooting me subversive glances since we arrived. He’d been perfectly attentive to the shifter refugees, but it almost seemed as though he was angry that I was making him care about them—that I was confronting him with their pain.

The trip to the human camps was short; we’d promised the pilots we would return by the scheduled departure time. This left us only about an hour to assess the situation. Before we arrived, I worried this wouldn't be enough time; afterward, I realized it was too much. The scene was so overwhelming, so distressing, that even a few minutes amidst the chaos was unbearable.

If we’d believed the plight of shifter refugees was grave, it was nothing compared to that of the humans. Shifters, after all, understood why their lives had fallen to ruin; the humans were completely in the dark and coping poorly.

We heard the camp before we saw it. This wasn’t surprising, given our supernatural hearing, but the sounds that drifted to us through the forest weren't the desperate cries of people in need. It sounded like a battle.

Eventually, we reached the crest of a hill overlooking the sprawling camps—if they could even be called camps. "Holy Goddess," Gabriel said beside me, his dark skin remarkably pale.

A vast field of black and blue tarps lay in deep mud, propped up on shabby poles and sticks. They were supposed to be tents, but they looked more like the squalid dwellings often built by the homeless in large cities. The ramshackle structures were on the verge of collapse, and there was no sign of food or fresh water. The stench was incredible, and it was immediately apparent that no one governed this place.

The disconsolate cries of women and children rose through the air in a miserable symphony, while the voices of angry men exploded in violent shouts. There seemed to be movement everywhere, but none of it was positive or productive. Fights broke out every few feet, people lashing out over the last piece of firewood or accusing one another of theft and assault.

Utter dread filled me as I anticipated the inevitable castigations from the other Alphas. "And you want us to bring these wretches into our world?" I imagined Kieran saying, disdain dripping from his tongue. A crash sounded in the distance, and terrified screams erupted as the humans spun around, searching for the source of the disturbance. It was coming from the northern mountains—the opposite direction of the shifter camps—and sounded like nothing more than a rock slide. However, to their ears, it must have sounded like an incoming army, and their fear was so potent my heart ached.

"I've never seen anything so…" Callahan began, trailing off.

"Hopeless," Kieran finished. Of all the members in our party, he was the last person I expected to find an ounce of empathy for these people. Still, the pain and concern in his voice were clear, and I found myself even more on edge than before. I couldn't make sense of his behavior that day. One moment he was tense and on edge, looking around at the other summit attendees with such suspicion and distrust that I wondered what on earth was going through his head. The next moment, he was acting as though he actually had a heart, and I didn't trust it for a moment. Something was going on with him; whether this latest show of emotion was to throw us off the trail, or he was internally overcompensating for his treachery, I didn't know. I had a terrible feeling that Kieran had not only decided where to pledge his alliance in this war but that he'd chosen the opposition.

Ella

He was late. The lying fink had promised! But here we were, five minutes after the designated landing time, and the airfield was completely devoid of planes.

"Something's wrong," I fretted, looking back and forth between Henry and Isabel, eager for their perspectives.

"They probably just got caught in a headwind," Henry answered, squeezing my hand. "Flight timetables are estimates, not an exact science."

I gnawed nervously on my lower lip, focusing on Isabel. Surely she would support me, I thought, with James away as well. "They did radio when they departed the coast," she reminded me—the traitor! "We have no reason to think anything has gone awry."

My wolf grumbled mutinously in my head, and I was already racking my brains for a way to go after my missing mate. There weren't any planes left here in the capital—at least, not any that belonged to the King. "Do many Vanaran citizens own private planes?" I asked curiously, trying to keep my voice innocent.

"Don't even think about it," Philippe growled from behind me. "For my sake, if not your own. Dominic will kill me if I let you anywhere near an aircraft."

"Let me?" I muttered under my breath, my wolf roiling against the idea that anyone but Sinclair should give us orders. "I ought to—look!" I exclaimed, interrupting myself as a dot appeared on the horizon, zooming towards us.

"There, you see?" Henry chuckled. "They're just running a little behind."

The wait was much easier then, but still frustrating. The delegation wasn't on the first, second, or third transports to land, and I realized my noble mate probably waited until everyone else had departed before taking off himself. Finally, the last plane taxied onto the field, coming to a stop mere meters away. The cargo door began to descend before the plane had even finished moving, and then Sinclair was there, bounding out onto the pavement.

I threw myself into his open arms, feeling every muscle in my overwrought body finally relax. "Seven minutes, Dominic!" I told him furiously. "You are seven whole minutes late!"

"I'm sorry, sweetheart," he breathed against my ear, squeezing me so tightly I thought I might burst. "But I'm here now." He purred, "I'm here."

I pulled back only far enough to kiss him, tears of relief stinging my eyes. Sinclair hungrily kissed me, letting his power pour off him in heady waves. The wolves around us shrank back at the force, but my own inner canine only swooned. I didn't understand why he'd unleashed his full strength on the airfield, but I was too caught up in the delicious feel of him to care at that moment. It went on and on, until everyone around us retreated to the intake tents. Even James and Isabel, who had been trying to pretend they didn't want to be wrapped around each other in precisely this way, eventually slipped away hand in hand.

It wasn't until later, when we were alone in our rooms, that he explained himself. First, he told me about the human camps, which devastated and horrified me in equal measure. It was easy to understand why he would feel so on edge, and as terrible as it sounds, I wished that was all there was to his temper. Instead, he explained the Storm Forest Alpha's most recent offenses. "Kieran was acting very odd today," he confessed, sprawled naked beside me in bed. "On edge, cagey, even after the danger had passed and we were on our way back. It set off alarm bells in my mind, so I wanted to remind him of exactly who he's dealing with—just in case."

"Then you mean it wasn't for me?" I pouted, my body still flushed from his thorough loving.

"Not entirely," he grinned wolfishly, caressing my belly. "I knew you'd enjoy it, and I wanted to let go for my own sake, but I also needed to send him a message."

"Well, it worked," I assured him. "You should have seen the looks on their faces when they first felt it?"

"Should I take that to mean you were looking at other wolves while I was kissing you?" Sinclair growled playfully, making me squirm with renewed heat.

"I was just curious," I shrugged, blushing. "Besides, my wolf liked seeing all those big tough Alphas run away with their tails between their legs," I admitted, rubbing my body against him.

"Oh?" He inquired, eyes glinting.

I nodded eagerly, unable to hide the sensual pleasure in my voice. "They looked like children compared to you."

"Now you're just flattering me," he teased, kissing my nose. "And if you keep this up, then we're going to get distracted and end up late for dinner—which we can't afford. Not with Kieran acting so shifty and the summit ending tomorrow."

My desire was immediately banked. "You think he might betray us?"

Sinclair grimaced. "I think he's hiding something… and we need to find out what it is. We don't have much time left."